My name is Shannon and I am married and the mother of 2 boys. This is my journey and musings as a self proclaimed County Girl, living in town, or rather in the village. I try to live simple, with my motto as Back to Basics. Enjoy life and the little important things that make it worthwhile. Welcome to my world : )

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Student loans have been looming over me for some years now.
I have not been able to find work in any field related to my degree or even as a graduate student. I deferred and deferred until I could defer
those loans no more. Freaking out, I still applied for job after job. There was
no hope in sight, and then one day I signed into Facebook. There was a position
at my favorite store open. I applied and really figured I had no hope because I
had no formal experience of any kind in a market/kitchen setting.

I am utterly disappointed that I will not be working within
school districts, libraries, archives or any other center for higher learning.
Education, research, books; they have been my passion and motivation for so
long. It is heart breaking to let go of a dream. I worked extremely hard to put
myself to school but the state of our public school system here in Michigan is
that there is no funding to put it simply. There are minimal schools with librarian/media tech
positions at all. There are an overabundance of qualified teachers and school personnel
without work. Education is not a priority in my State. Class sizes have
swollen, students learn foreign languages from computer programs instead of
instructors, disciplinary actions are more numerous and disgruntled voters are
no longer supporting schools with mileages. It is a sad state of affairs. Who knows, maybe
I am the disgruntled one, as a parent, voter, and as one of the millions of
college graduates without a job.

Ahhh, but I got the job; I am assisting a Master Cheese
Maker part time. It has been an awesome learning experience so far. I am excited to try out some
new things. Working part time will allow me to pay off my student debt and as
we all know, I love all things sustainable so learning about cheese, the
different kinds, making it, preserving it, cutting it, all of the above, is a
very cool thing to me.

This past week of training and working 4 days in a row has
been an eye opener. It has been a very long time since I was a working mother. I came home nightly to a trashed house. The
kids, the husband, the dogs, were all against me it seemed. The dogs tore into
things and made messes. The Boys, they ate and ate and ate all the food in the
house but did not bother to throw away their garbage. The Husband mostly slept,
but to be fair, he does work the midnight shift so that part was normal, but
in the moment it just felt wrong and like everyone was against me. I even dropped my Iphone and shattered the screen completely. It has just been a crazy way to start off this new adventure.

I have a new respect for working parents and I am unaware of
how they keep their households functioning. I get home at 3pm or 4pm and instantly
scoop up children to run them to football practice. No good meals were prepared
or eaten. I fell into the mold of grab something quick and feed it to your kids
that I have been so vehemently against. I don’t want to feed my children rushed meals on
the go. I do not want to send my husband off to work with his only choice being
a fast- food drive thru on his way out of town. Sacrificing our shared dinner family time at my house is not an option. That is not how I want to raise
my kids or live our lives. So today, I went off to the grocery store. I was on
a mission. I spent today, preparing the basic chopping and putting together of
meals that I can throw together on a work evening and feed my family quickly
but without sacrificing nutrition for convenience. My crock pot will get its
work out on my work days, that is for sure. Spaghetti night will change to a
work night and the sauce is already prepared waiting. I still need to put up more
corn and veggies for the winter but my freezer is looking good so far. Taco night, is also going to be a go to meal
for us. It is easy to brown the meat and seasoning and set it aside in the
freezer to just heat when ready.

Wish me luck in keeping it all together. I have moments when
it feels pretty overwhelming to be honest but someone has to pay back Uncle Sam
for my education and that someone is me, so part time work and sacrificing some
free time to prepare is hopefully what will get my family back on track.

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

“When the sun is
warm but the breeze chilled with the end of summer, I mostly want to nap
outside. Sleeping outside brings peace to my soul said the accidental tree-hugger
that is me."

– Shannon

Hills of Kentucky

My random Facebook status this afternoon left me feeling
philosophical and thinking…could be a dangerous combination for sure... What is
it about nature that talks to my soul? People are comfortable in their houses,
their shelter, and their beds even, but for me, I am comfortable outside on a
nice day. There is no place I would rather be. This is not how I have always been. There was
a time in my teenage years I would have said I was most comfortable at a
shopping mall or driving back roads in my first car. Going even younger, I
would have said I was most comfortable at home in my bedroom. My transformation
to nature girl or more like nature appreciator happened mostly after I had my
first son.

Maybe it is the act of becoming a mother that brought me
closer to nature, maybe it was just part of growing up, it’s hard to tell. I
have always loved camping, hiking, horseback trail rides, and water, whether
swimming or boating or just beach sitting. Outdoors was always about fun and
doing things, being on the go. Now, outdoors is my solitude. It is where I like
to be silent, to collect my thoughts. It is where I want to read a book or take
a nap. I want to feel the sunshine on my skin and the breeze in my hair. I want
to smell the fresh cut grass or that wonderful smell of wet after a nice rain.

Shores of Lake Superior

This love of outdoors and nature is what got me into
gardening, the turning over the earth cultivating my little plot of soil and
growing food. At first, I was content with just growing food that my family
would eat as it ripened. No thoughts were given to trying to preserve my
bounty. In time, I realized that grocery store foods just didn’t taste as good
as the ones that I grew. That lead me down a road of wanting to know what was
in the food that I was serving to my family.I am lucky that my children have always been good eaters. They enjoy
eating fresh fruits and veggies far more than processed foods. Well, aside from
popsicles and ice cream, but we all have our vices don’t we?

Hiking trails in Tennessee

From being the girl who liked to shop and eat greasy pizza
from a Mall cafeteria I have become a wife and mother who is greatly concerned
with food and its origins. Factory farming and the overabundance of GMO foods
in our food chain concerns me. I am following the campaign to label GMO’s in
California and I am rooting for the Proposition
37 to pass. I hope that California leads the way to sweeping legislation requiring
GMO to be put on food labels throughout the Country. I hope the corporate greed
and their greatness of wealth do not win in the battle to know what is in our
foods.

To eat and to feed our families is such a basic need. It
dates back to before the “Common Era” or recorded time but to the act of
survival of the first species. Food is a necessity and this campaign is not
asking for an outlaw to GMO foods, it is instead asking for labels to be put on
foods so that consumers, the American people, can choose what is best for
themselves and their families. This is a basic principle and I have a hard time
seeing the other side of this argument. Why is it so harmful to label the
foods? I do not get the backlash at wanting labels. They already have to label
for calories and ingredients, this is just one more line on the label already
in place.

Sunday, August 19, 2012

One of the first things that I learned to preserve by
canning was pickles. A friend and neighbor let me tag-a-long in her kitchen as
her husband and she prepared their pickles. It was an awesome and unexpectedly
easy process.They made dill pickles and
so I made dill pickles. I only liked dill pickles so what was I missing right?
Well, as I have begun to eat more fruits and veggies and less processed foods store bought foods, I
began to expand my horizons with different pickles.

Bread and Butter Chips, they have become my new obsession.
How have I lived 30 or so years and never had a bread and butter pickle?! I love
them! However, I was not in love with the store bought varieties use of high
fructose corn syrup, so I set out to make my own using cane sugar.

My Goodies

First step though, was getting pickling cukes. My first year
at this Village abode and I was taken by surprise that my garden was devoured
by wild life. One day I had beautiful cucumber plants and the next day they were
all gone. Just wiped out completely.I
am lucky to be in a small village that is surrounded by rural farming
communities. I was off to my favorite local farm stand where I got to use my
cool bushel basket that I bought at Tractor Supply, to hold all my goodies. It’s
probably not an essential part of farm market shopping but it sure felt nice to
me.

After picking up a peck of pickle cucumbers. (Say that fast
5 times lol) I went home to wash them and then soak them in an ice water bath.
I got out my jars, washed them up and sterilized them. I keep my jars in the
oven at 175 degrees to stay warm once they have been boiled to sterilize.

To Prep the cucumbers, I slice them into as uniformed slices
as possible. You do not want them too thin either or they will lose their
crunch. I then soak the slices in ice cold water for 1 hour at least.This is usually how long it takes to bring my
water bath canner to a good full rolling boil.

While soaking the cuckes, I, in a non-reactive pot, bring to boil the vinegar and sugar. To this I
add the spices and let boil for 10 minutes.

Drain the cucumbers. I then cold pack them into sterilized quart
jars.I then add the hot pickling liquid
right to the jars. Process them in a water bath canner for 10 minutes. Let
these cool and marinate for at least a day in the pickling liquid before you
eat them. The waiting is the hardest part. I also prefer these cold so as they
cool, I like to stick them into the fridge so that when the day waiting period
is up, I can eat them. This recipe usually
makes 4 quarts of pickles.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

I must confess, I am new to a lot of things when it comes to
preserving my own foods. I have the Bell
Blue Book of Canning and it is my preservation Bible, my go to source for canning knowledge, but I am new to many
of the recipes. This Great Grape Jelly Experiment started when I made freezer
jam for my family. I preserved a dozen and a half jars of strawberry,
blackberry, and triple berry jams to keep in my freezer and use throughout the
year. I was such a proud little homesteader with my fruits frozen or made into
jam and then frozen.I love to look at
my freezer and see all the goodies I have worked to put up for the winter.
However, after the first jar of blackberry jam had to be sampled, my family
decided that they did not like the seeds in the jam. I didn’t notice them, I
personally thought my jam was spectacular just like any mama does with her
little prize possessions. My family, it turns out, likes seedless jellies more
than jams. In fact, the chock full of high fructose corn syrup grape jelly is
their favorite. So, I set out to make the men in my life happy and whip up some
grape jelly.

Into the pages of the Bell
Book to find grape jelly recipes, I found 2, one that used pectin and one
that did not. Seem simple enough right? Ingredients needed 7 cups of Concord
grape juice. Well, I can handle that. I headed right out to the store to find
100% Concord grape juice. I got out my trusty stainless steel pan and started
mixing the juice, sugar and liquid pectin. I heated it to a boil…then I
realized that I was supposed to actually juice grapes…Who would have thought?
Well, I was too far into the recipe not to at least finish and try to see it
this experiment would pan out.

Jars going into the canner

The recipe in my Bell
Bible said that the jelly needed to be processed in a waterbath canner for
10 minutes. I went ahead and filled my jars and processed the jelly. I listened
for the telltale “pops” of the lids to show that the process was complete and
that the jars sealed. They did, they popped. The excitement at my little
experiment grew. I sooo out smarted those men in my life. I could totally make
grape jelly. Nothing to it right? Well. . .well the jelly did not really jell. . . at all. Instead, I had 4 pints
of really sweet grape juice. I actually cannot imagine what it would taste like
to just drink it with all the added sugar and pectin and all.This non-jelling could be from using the
juice, but I am beginning to suspect it was because I rushed the boil, heated it as fast as I could... There I go, fumbling through again.

Water Bath is a going : )

Unable to accept defeat, I read up on the internet about
jellies not jelling and decided to have another go at my grape jelly. I opened
the sealed jars and returned them to my pot. I slowly brought the juice, sugar,
pectin mixture to a boil like I would when making candy. Once the mix was
boiling, it really started to smell like grape jelly. I knew it was going to
work out this time. I continued this boil for 10 minutes. While the jelly was
still hot, I ladled it into my waiting sterilized jars. Into the waterbath they
went for another full ten minutes in the boiling canner.

And . . . . as those jars came out and the “pop” sound of a
successful seal was made…they began to really jell. Yay!!

Some of my jars cooling

So, lesson learned, when canning, follow the recipes to the
“T”. Read thoroughly first, before assembling the things you need. Jelly can be
made and preserved in a waterbath canner, it just needs to be done following
tried and true recipes and utilizing a nice slow boil. Some time may have been used up in my Great
Grape Jelly experiment but it was valuable in the lessons learned.I am glad to be able to make the products my
family enjoys as much as possible. I
really do prefer to feed my family foods that are whole or minimally processed,
even if that processing is done by me. The things that are put in foods these
days are scary, from the factory farms, hormones, GMOs, antibiotics and lots of
high fructose corn syrup, the list goes on, but it is scary not to know what
goes into your food. You are what you eat right?

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Good morning folks, I am having one of those coffee, quiet house, rainy day inspired philosophical moments. Who am I? That is my question. I am Shannon. My interests include basket weaving, backyard chickens, gardening, preserving my harvest by canning and freezing. Cooking for my family is something that I enjoy. My husband is not always thrilled when I make him try new vegetables but I do it anyway. I'm a fixer. If there is something wrong or a task that needs done, I am your go to gal. I enjoy working through problems, it gives me a sense of triumph. I am a busy sports mom. You know, the one who wears the team colors and shouts "Go Team!!" at every opportunity...Yup that's me. I attend all the practices and games. I sit in the rain, snow and extreme heat. I carry "trunk blankets" in the trunk of my car. You never know when you may need one, either at baseball or football season. Those fold us chairs in a bag? I am a connoisseur of the camping/sport chair.

I am a sucker for animals. Really, I love them. It probably comes down to the fact that I believe they all need me. lol My kids even get on board with that..."See that stray dog mom, it needs you" ... And it does. They all need me. lol I should come to grips with the fact that I like to be needed. I live in a household of all boys...except my animals are all girls...well except for Buster Brown the cat and he doesn't really like me as much as tolerates me. I call all of my animals "My Girls." When going for a walk, I say "Come on My Girls" and my dogs follow me about. My chickens are "My Ladies". They are some busy hens and in my mind they all have English accents. It's my mind, so they can have those. lol

What else screams Shannon? Reading! Reading and writing but I love reading. I know, I posted a while back about my son and his struggles with reading and how much I love to read. A secret confession of mine is that while everyone knows I love to read, I also am really getting into writing. I always thought that I was a reader, I love books, but not the writing of books. . . Secret confession..I like the writing. I would love to write a novel. Who wouldn't right? I don't even know if I could start one. I always wonder how authors can tell if a thought is their original or if it is something they read many many years ago and their brain just recycled it. Crazy? I don't know. I can not count the number of books I have read. I put away at least 3 to 4 books a week. I do not watch tv or movies really for that matter. Im a book girl. I like them all.

Go Blue!

In college I majored in US History. My favorite class was an English Lit class...go figure right? Well actually it was technically an English class but it was on Early American Lit. The class was all about the early documents, letters, poems, pamphlets, that were coming out of the Colonies. I got to read Ben Franklin and Thomas Paine as well as Ann Bradstreet and Phillis Wheatley. This class taught me so much more than what was going on in America at the time. The professor was very into close reading. A technique, that at first, I thought was really just baloney. But, as the class went on and we discussed these works in depth, I began to see the real beauty of language. Why authors choose certain words, colors, settings, all of it and how they tell a story even deeper than the face value of the writing. A story is a story, but a good story can be made a great story by the language that is used. I'm a nerd aren't I? lol

So this morning, before I wake up my kids to start a busy day of baseball tryouts, I have come to the conclusion that Shannon=human. I am human. I have interest and concerns. I have strengths and weaknesses. I am a self proclaimed country girl and nerd all at the same time, its just who I am. I preserve food and talk to my chickens. I wear a lot of sports hoodies and I know when a pitcher bocks. I will yell "False start" at football games before a ref can blow his whistle, well I yell from the stand, cant distract the players you know... I read, a lot, and I am not hip to the game when it comes to tv shows and movies.
Well this is me in a nut shell and I am ok with that.

Thursday, August 9, 2012

This past week, my mother, my children, my brother’s
children and I headed to a local state park for some camping and family
time.The baseball season had come to an
end, the weather was beautiful and we had a full week before the chaos of football
practice began. Who needs any other excuse to get outside and back to nature
with family?

Well, back to nature with family for this week really meant,
sleeping in a rustic cabin at the local state park. There was a roof over our
heads, but no running water or indoor plumbing to be seen. There were however,
showers and bathrooms spaced ever so intermittently around the campground. Being, the county girl who has become
accustomed to village life that I am, I grabbed my coffee maker and my crock
pot. With these things, I can do anything. Right? Well, at least I was going to
be caffeinated while I tried.

I also saw this as an opportunity to try out some great
pinterest ideas for campfire cooking. One I had my eye on for quite some time
involved bananas.This recipe inspiration
“pin” came from http://lickmyspoon.com/recipes/banana-boats/.We took our bananas and split them in the middle. Into that we added chocolate
chips, peanut butter and mini marshmallows. We then wrapped them up and placed them on the
grill over the hot coals from dinner. These little boats roasted up in about 5
minutes. They were spectacular! I mean, just really fabulous…have I said how
awesome these were? Because they were. The bananas were perfectly warmed and caramelizing
from the heat. The chocolate and peanut butter is just an awesome combination
as it is but then with the marshmallow goodness melted all through… just bliss
I tell you, pure perfectly wonderful bliss.

Since I was on a role after those banana boats, the next
night, we roasted marshmallows with the kids and what summer night campfire is
complete without s’mores? To our s’mores, I spread peanut butter on the graham
crackers, then added the chocolate bars and let the kids add their own roasted
marshmallows. These were also wonderful. I am pretty certain if I learned
anything this past week it is that peanut butter makes everything spectacular.

Snuggies were meant for campfires

All this dessert and I have yet to tell you about my brilliant
idea to bring a crock pot camping. We have a couple of outlets to use at our
site. We brought along a surge protector strip and used this to give ourselves
a couple extra outlets to plug things in. That is brilliant in its own right,
but the crock pot really does take the cake. In the crock pot we made mac and
cheese one day. Just set it on low and let the noodles, milk and cheese, blend
together while we were off enjoying the lake. On another day, that crock pot
warmed chicken and veggies. It was a great holder of hot dogs too, kept them
warm and ready to go as soon as the last munchkin came out of the water to eat.
We never did get a chance to try out the crock pot for breakfast foods. It’s a must
try on our next trip, but even in spite of not trying out the breakfast
options, the crock pot has for sure found its way into the essential pile when
I am packing for camping.

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

It feels like I haven't blogged in forever. Fear not dear friends I have been camping with my family for a few days. I have tried lots of fun pinterest ideas for cooking over a campfire and I even brought along my trusty crock pot. Tonight we had Mac & Cheese that cooked while we enjoyed the lake. Can't beat that huh? It's been a fun break before football starts. Why yes, baseball did just end technically but we are also into tryout season for next baseball season. What's a busy mom to do? Well so far, when in doubt, get back to nature. . . On another note, please, follow me on Twitter @VillageGirlBlog

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Little did I know four years ago when I gave up buying
tomatoes out of season that I would stumble upon a movement for seasonal,
local, fresh food.Mostly, I gave them
up because as often as I tried, always hoping the next tomato would be
better than the last, they just never were. Store bought tomatoes in Michigan
during a January freeze are just not good. There were no name or grassroots
movement that I was aware of, it was just the basic fact. The tomatoes may have
all been uniform in size and a nice bright red on the outside, but the insides
were colorless and lacking in flavor.

I began to garden and grow my own tomatoes. I started with Burpee seeds and planted “Beefsteak” and
“Early Janes” along with a few cherry and grape tomato plants. There is nothing
better than a sun warmed tomato fresh from the garden. There’s no need to even
salt them.These seedling tomatoes did
me well and got me on the path of gardening and preserving my harvest.

Eventually we moved to another town, where there was a road
side stand every spring where a local lady sold her fruit and veggie plants
already started. When her purple umbrella covered stand opened I knew it was
time to get my garden started. I compost throughout the year and plant into the
rich earth those pretty little plants that I always counted on to grow big and
strong, laden with my bounty.

This year, I have a friend who moved out of her forested
childhood home to a nice sunny farm not too far from where I call home. She
ordered heirloom seeds for all types of fruits and veggies. She diligently set
up shop and started her seeds indoors before sowing them into the ground after
the last frost. Today, I lucked out and got to try one of those heirloom
tomatoes. This tomato was a Krim, I don’t remember if it was the red of black
variety but it was a Krim of some sort.It was delicious. Really, just plain wonderful with a little salt and
pepper it, in my opinion should be considered a culinary masterpiece.

Heirloom tomatoes are not your grocery store variety. They
are not all uniformed red or globe shaped. They come in all shapes, sizes and
colors. Their appearance may even be off putting to us who have been indoctrinated
into believing that tomatoes should all be the red orbs that we often see in
stores. Someone may glance at the wide variety of colors and shapes and think
something went wrong with these fruits. I encourage everyone to just try it. Try
a bite of a tomato that is not your everyday variety that you are used too. The
flavors are so worth it. These are the way tomatoes are supposed to taste.

Once you have branched out away from grocery store tomatoes it is hard to ever
go back. You start to order sandwiches at shops without tomato, not because you
don’t like them but because they are those flavorless store bought variety. Then you stop buying them out of season
because really those mealy uniformed orbs just don’t cut it. Eventually you
find that you need to start a container garden to grow a plant or two. That’s how
it all started for me. Now, I prefer to grow my own but when I need more than I
have room to grow, I shop from my local farmers markets. The food is so much
better on so many levels. I believe it has broken down less nutrition wise from
not traveling miles and miles in trucks or planes, it is less likely to be
genetically modified in a laboratory and also the food just tastes better.

So, this year, the harvests are coming in and nature’s
bounty is all around us. Take the time to sample foods from your local farmers
markets, try one of the “odd” looking tomatoes with names like San Marzano,
Brandywine red, Gardeners Delight, Cherokee purple, Black Krim, Green Zebra,
Amish Paste, Aunt Ruby's German Green, Chocolate Cherry, or Three Sisters and enjoy the wonderful flavors that await
you.

Enjoy : )

ps... I am so bummed I forgot to take a picture of my friends awesome tomatoes! *Face to Palm

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About Me

Let's see, What to know about me... I love my husband. I love my Kids. I love my dogs and my Chickens...and even my cats. I love my family and my friends. I love reading. I love road trips. I love to laugh. I love opening my windows and listening to the rain. I love watching storms from my front porch. I love fresh mowed grass. I love gardening. I love camping. I am a Foodie. I love cooking and Baking. I believe in fresh ingredients, to me they make the best dishes. I am also on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/Countrygirlinthevillageblogspotcom